Earnings Labs

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (LPX)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Fri, May 5, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2017 Louisiana-Pacific Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Sallie Bailey, Please go ahead.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thank you very much, Charlotte, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss LP's financial results for the first quarter of 2017. I am Sallie Bailey, LP's Chief Financial Officer and with me today are Curt Stevens, LP's Chief Executive Officer; Brad Southern, LP's Chief Operating Officer; as well as Mike Kinney and Becky Barckley, our primary Investor Relations contact. I will begin the discussion with a review of our financial results for the first quarter of 2017, and this will be followed by some comments on the performance of the individual segments and selective balance sheet items. After I finish my remarks, Brad will provide an update on our Siding capacity expansion plan, followed by Curt, discussing the general market environment in which LP has been operating, his perspective on our operating results and give his thoughts on the outlook. As we've done in the past, we've opened up this call to the public and are doing a webcast. The webcast can be accessed at www.lpcorp.com. Additionally, to help with the discussion, we've provided a presentation with supplemental information that should be reviewed in conjunction with the earnings release. I will be referencing these slides in my comments. We filed our 10-Q and an 8-K earlier today with some supplemental information. I do want to remind all the participants about the forward-looking statements comment on slide 2 of the presentation. Please also be aware of the discussion of our use of non-GAAP financial information included on slide 3 of the presentation. The appendix attached to the presentation has some of the necessary reconciliations that have been supplemented by the Form 8-K filing we made this morning. Rather than reading these two statements, I incorporate them with this reference. The first quarter of 2017 was LP's…

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thank you, Sallie, and good afternoon to all. As Sallie reported, we continue to drive strong SmartSide volume and revenue growth. Our capacity expansion strategy for SmartSide is to stay ahead of demand using a rigorous evaluation process. This process considers factors such as timing, scale, production cost, capital cost, staffing, construction risk and operating risk. Last quarter, we reported that we completed the mill swap in Québec with Norbord and acquired a manufacturing site in Cook, Minnesota that gives us additional flexibility to add capacity to support the growth in our SmartSide business. In addition, we have explored the option of converting other aspen wood-based OSB mills in our system or owned by others. Because of the growth we're seeing on the West Coast and our desire to lower the risk, our current plan is to convert our Dawson Creek, British Columbia OSB mill to a SmartSide plant. Key factors that differentiated this side are timing to first board, wood cost, cost of production, proximity to our West Coast customer base, and reduced operational risk due to the fact that Dawson Creek is currently staffed and producing OSB. We plan to request board approval for this conversion project in July once we have completed the detailed engineering and design. With that said, both Val-d'Or, Quebec and Cook, Minnesota sites are likely options for future Siding expansion. Given our strong SmartSide demand growth, we estimate that the Dawson Creek conversion will satisfy about two to three years of demand growth. Since Val-d'Or is not currently operating and the Cook, Minnesota site will basically be a brownfield mill with new buildings and equipment, we are continuing our planning process for both locations with a focus on Cook. Given the brownfield nature of Cook, we have initiated a more detailed engineering and design study, which will be followed by the necessary environmental permitting assessments. These are exciting times for our SmartSide business. We're fortunate to have multiple viable manufacturing options to support the demand growth being realized by our sales and marketing team, with the support of our distribution partners. With that, I'll turn the call over to Curt.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thanks, Brad, for the update on the Siding expansion. With the growth that we've seen in the last couple of years, I'm more determined than ever to making sure that we have the capacity available to grow this business meaningfully. Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us on the call. I recognize this is a Friday afternoon, but our board of directors took several actions this morning that we wanted to discuss with the analysts and investors as soon as possible. I'll get to that in a few minutes. As usual I'll start with our safety performance. In Q1, we had a total incident rate of 0.45 and a 12-months rolling average of 0.44. In addition, we were informed by the APA that based on our 2016 safety performance, LP won 10 out of the 11 safety awards that we were eligible for, including the Safest Large Company, and the Safest Small Company. And you might ask yourself, how can we be both a large company and a small company. The Small Company award actually went to the Resolute LP I-Joist JV in Québec that has two mills. Today, I'll be providing comments on our results and accomplishments in the first quarter, provide some comments on the lumber countervailing duties that were recently put in place on Canadian imports, give you my views on housing and the outlook for the rest of 2017, and end with a few comments on the upcoming leadership change at LP. I know Sallie went through our financial results in detail, but I'd also like to have a chance to talk about those numbers. So, total sales, Sallie said, were 21% higher than Q1 of last year, led by higher OSB pricing and a 16% volume increase in Siding. Net income was $55 million and adjusted…

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Great. Thank you, Curt. Charlotte, if we can, we'd like to go to the questions, please.

Operator

Operator

Certainly. Our first question comes from the line of Ketan Mamtora from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. First on Dawson Creek, can you provide some kind of metrics in terms of CapEx or capacity and timeline?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

So, as I mentioned, we're going to go to the board in July with our detailed engineering and capital request. The range of capital probably be between $110 million and $130 million as far as capital cost, and we are looking at a start-up facility in 2019, probably the early part of – like 2018 or early part of 2019.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

And how much capacity would that – this be, Brad?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

300 million feet at the Siding.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

300 million feet? And you said this is worth two to three years of demand?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Correct. Two to three years, yes.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

I see. And so the existing capacity that you have will run through the end of 2018, is that correct?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

That is correct.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

And then beyond that, when I think about Val-d'Or and Cook, can you talk a little bit about sort of puts and takes between those two. You said that Cook, obviously, is brownfield and so there is more of a work that needed to be done there. But, can you, kind of at a high level, provide us kind of how you think about those two options that you all have?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Sure. So, just to remind it to everyone, Val-d'Or does have equipment in place as an OSB mill, but it is not running. So, unlike Dawson, which is staffed and running, we would – we require to hire staff and get it up and operational and convert it from OSB to Siding. The mill is also a smaller mill than either Dawson or Cook, with – from a Siding perspective, we're looking at about 225 million feet. So, it would probably be a little quicker ramp-up in Cook because of the existing equipment that's in place. For Cook, as it is more of a brownfield, there are few buildings in place on that site, but it would be – we would need to construct some buildings, do a lot of foundational work, and obviously equip the entire mill. The advantages of Cook, though, is, it is a larger mill, it would be about 400 million square feet, so it would be even larger than Dawson, and has a footprint where down the road even a second press line could be added. So, there is a lot of – Cook gives us a lot of upside on volume. It's a beautiful land – piece of land, beautiful site to construct the mill and then expand it to a second press line in the future if we need to. So, Val-d'Or would be a smaller option, but a little quicker getting it up and running.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Understood. And just to be clear, so this 400 million square feet that you said for Cook is just on one line, is that correct or second press line...

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

That is...

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

...capacity would be on top?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

...correct. Yeah, that's the 400 million square feet that I mentioned is one line, correct.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Understood. And just one follow-up on Dawson. So, is it fair to say up until the time of conversion, the Dawson Creek mill will be running to OSB, so I mean the transition should be pretty seamless when you switch over from OSB to Siding, so implying that you could produce OSB right until the end of 2018?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Correct. That is very similar to what we did in Swan. We will produce the OSB up until the day. We can take the plant down to tie-in and do all the conversion – the conversion tie-ins. We were down in Dawson for – I mean, on Swan, for four weeks -

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Four months.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

I am sorry, four months for the conversion. And so, we're looking at running up to it, shut down three to four months and then they come up running a combination of Siding and OSB as we go through the learning curve.

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay, got you. That's very helpful. I'll turn it over and thanks for all the answers.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Okay. You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Hi. Good afternoon, Curt, Brad, and Sallie.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Hey, Chip.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

My first question is just on the Siding results. It would seem like – and I might have missed the number here, I think you said that your production of commodities – of just regular OSB there fell, so it was like 53 million square feet this year, and what was it last year in the first quarter?

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Other way around, it was $53 million last year and 51 million – 53 million square feet last year and 51 million square feet this year.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Got you. So given where prices are, it was probably about a $3 million swing for you if you assume prices were up $50, $60 year-over-year, is that in the right ballpark?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

For the Siding segment, that's correct. As Sallie said.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Early (28:32) for that, yeah, okay. And then, how much would you estimate, I know we had this issue two years ago with a pull forward in the segment, but yet I don't – I'm not sure you were putting it forward a price increase, though. (28:47) strong first quarter in 2015, and then – and unusually it was down seasonally in – despite seasonality in the second quarter, a little bit to EBIT. And when you look at the impact this year, I guess there are two pieces, one is the positive of the pricing, and then – but then there is the negative of the pull-forward. And I'm guessing a couple of years ago, it could have been $5 million or $8 million that went to the first from the second quarter. Would it be that kind of magnitude this year?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, remember that one of the reasons why Q2 is typically lower than Q1 is we sell to the pre-finishers, and they buy ahead, so they can pre-finish during this spring to get ready for the summer selling season. So, it's not atypical for second quarter to be lower than the first quarter because of that factor. And then you add into this, the fact that we did put price increases in, and we staggered them by segment. So, we've got price increase in the shed segment in Q1. In March, we had a price increase in retail sector and it wasn't till April 5 or April that we had a price increase for the largest piece which is the distributors. So, yeah, we do think we brought something forward. I don't know if I can exactly quantify it.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Chip, this is a very different situation than two years ago. Two years ago was – as we're getting ready to go into Swan and so we are putting customers on allocation, we do think that part of the reasons that we've pulled some – potentially pulled some demand forward is because we did allow our customers to buy up to – in the first quarter of 2017, to buy up to 20% more than they bought in the first quarter of 2016 under the old pricing. So, that's part of what is leaving us to that conclusion. So, I think, we wait to see when we get through the second quarter to be able to quantify the impact.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

And the pricing is what – what was the percentage roughly?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

It was – depending on the segment and the region, it was between 2% and 6%.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Okay. That's very helpful. And then just shifting gears back to the expansion. And let me just say, it's been great how you all have given us some – been very candid with some of your thoughts about Val-d'Or, Cook, and now Dawson. And I seem to think last fall, it looked like – it seemed like that Val-d'Or was your first option and that Cook was your second. Now, if I heard you right, I believe – and I might have completely missed this, but I believe the expansion you just mentioned that would be 300 million square feet is actually Dawson and that Val-d'Or is maybe the last option, is that fair?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, no, it's not – let me tell you the factors that will go into, if these are the only two options when we get ready to build or convert the next mill, here is what would weigh into those. First of all the size. So, as we've mentioned, Cook is a lot larger and so it'd cover a longer period of time of demand growth. There is a nice advantage to Val-d'Or though and that is a 16-foot press, which is very conducive and optimal for making lap and trim siding. So depending on our mix growth over the next couple of years, that will weigh on how we make the decision for the next mill swinging in between Val-d'Or and Cook. But I will say, if Val-d'Or happens to be the next, because it's so small, we would almost immediately have to be working on Cook or another option behind that, because it could only cover a year-and-a-half to two years of growth on our current pace. So...

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Whereas when you look at Dawson, which you said was 300 million feet, that would – how much – how long would that cover you for? So, I know you're good through 2018, so how long should that cover you?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Two to three years.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Two to three years? So, you really would need to not have to have a Cook or Val-d'Or out there until like 2020, 2021 or so give or take?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Correct.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Okay. That's very helpful.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

But both of those would have a lot longer conversion cycle, because we're not currently operating, so we would need to get started on those earlier than we're having to do with Dawson.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Okay. And then the last one real quickly on, on Dawson. I know when Curt was giving us some numbers on the Siding – unlike Val-d'Or and Cook, there is a difference, it looks the Siding ratio is maybe 75% of the square foot, put into OSB. So, would that mean that you're giving up maybe 400 million feet, which you ramp up fully at Dawson in commodity OSB to get the 300 million feet of Siding, is that a good guess?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

We'd giving up about 50 million feet. The difference in capacity between Dawson on OSB and Dawson on Siding is about 50 million feet.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open

Okay. And Curt, listen, best of luck as you move forward, it's been great working with you, and again it's been a pleasure. I hope you enjoy your retirement.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

All right. Thank you, Chip.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open.

James H. Armstrong - Armstrong Investment Research

Analyst · James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions, and Curt, good luck on the retirement.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thanks.

James H. Armstrong - Armstrong Investment Research

Analyst · James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open

First up, just going back to Val-d'Or and Cook, could either of those come up online as an OSB facility before they actually are converted or would those probably stay idle until a conversion actually happens?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

No, actually they could, both could and would. We would want to run OSB in either of those two facilities for a while to make sure we have the proper quality control systems in place before Siding conversion. So, the timing of that depends on a lot of factors, but we would intend to run either plant on OSB for some period of time before converting it to Siding.

James H. Armstrong - Armstrong Investment Research

Analyst · James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open

Okay. That helps a lot. And then switching gears to Engineered Wood, there's a lot of other companies that have gone out with price increases. I didn't hear that you had announced a price increase. Could you remind us if there is one out there? What the magnitude is and what do you think the timing will be?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Yeah. The first price increase we put in place was in Canada and we did about a 10% price increase there. And then in the U.S., we're 7% to 10%, again depending on the product and the region. We didn't see any of that in the first quarter, we'll see a little bit in the second quarter, but the full impact won't happen until Q3.

James H. Armstrong - Armstrong Investment Research

Analyst · James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open

Okay. That helps a lot. And then, as you look to volume in OSB, it was pretty flat while the housing market was up. Was there anything specific to you that held those volumes flat besides one less day in the quarter, or would you probably grow more in line with the market into the second quarter?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Yeah. There were two things. One, we did have some equipment downtime in our Peace Valley mill that reduced production by about 20 million feet, and then we did the press rebuild at Jasper, so it was out for 45 days.

James H. Armstrong - Armstrong Investment Research

Analyst · James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open

Okay. So... (36:24).

James H. Armstrong - Armstrong Investment Research

Analyst · James Armstrong from Armstrong Investment. Your line is now open

Yeah. Perfect. Thank you very much. That's all I had.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Great. Thank you, James.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open.

Gail S. Glazerman - Roe Equity Research

Analyst · Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open

Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon. Just a quick follow up on that last comment. I thought you had a pretty big rebuild last first quarter as well. Can you just give us a sense of either in volume and/or cost, how that might have compare to what you saw this year?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

The Hanceville outage was a little shorter; it's about 37 days versus 45 days. So that was probably an eight day difference.

Gail S. Glazerman - Roe Equity Research

Analyst · Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open

Okay. And going back to the conversion project and again piggybacking something James was asking about. I mean, is there anything in your system that you would think of doing perhaps like restarting Val-d'Or, as you look ahead to losing the OSB volume at Dawson and do you have wood licenses at Val-d'Or sorted out yet or no?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

We do not have the wood license sorted out at Val-d'Or. Back to the question about, would you run OSB before Siding at Cook or Val-d'Or? Both of those options would be considered as a way to secure market share out of Dawson as we converted the Siding. But the timing of that is yet to be worked out. That's how feasible that is.

Gail S. Glazerman - Roe Equity Research

Analyst · Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open

Okay. And on Engineered Wood, I know you had referenced that you had seen some pre-buying in Siding ahead of the price increase, did you see any pre-buying in Engineered Wood ahead of those price increases?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

We don't think so. Because generally what we do is, Engineered Wood is a little bit different, because our dealers and distributors lock in projects and we guarantee in pricing for that project. And so, that's why it takes longer to get a price increase through to the bottom line in Engineered Wood, because you're committed from a pricing standpoint to those projects.

Gail S. Glazerman - Roe Equity Research

Analyst · Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open

Okay. And just one last one, Curt, could you maybe flesh out a little bit the comments you're making about, I guess, customers allocating maybe some more working capital to buying lumber ahead of duties and how that impacted you?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Yeah. We had two specific distributors tell us that they bought lumber ahead in anticipation of the duties coming into place, so that they could save money on that and make a little bit better margin. And as a result, so if they had $100 million they could spend on inventory, they spend more on lumber than they would have normally. And so, they spent less on Siding and putting the Siding inventory in place.

Gail S. Glazerman - Roe Equity Research

Analyst · Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open

Okay.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

So I think it affected our Siding business.

Gail S. Glazerman - Roe Equity Research

Analyst · Gail Glazerman from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open

Okay. Thank you.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Great. Thanks, Gail.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

John P. Babcock - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · George Staphos from Bank of America. Your line is now open

Good morning. This is actually John Babcock on the line for George. I just want to follow-up quickly on the Siding projects. You mentioned that you might be running OSB for a period of time there, would any of that be marketed outside of LPX or would that largely just be trials that you'd be running there?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

It would be sold by our OSB team. I'm not sure, I got the question.

John P. Babcock - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · George Staphos from Bank of America. Your line is now open

No. I just wanted to see, because I mean occasionally some companies will run product, but it won't necessarily be of good enough quality to actually sell outside. And so, I just want to kind of get some color there?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

But we'd expect it to be first quality.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Yes, I mean, there would obviously be some start-up board at the very beginning, but we would be fighting to get to A grade in a matter of days at a new start-up.

John P. Babcock - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · George Staphos from Bank of America. Your line is now open

Okay. Sounds good. And then as far as for the full year, are you still expecting, well, full year and also longer term guidance, still expecting growth of around 12% to 14% in the Siding business?

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, they didn't really guide, and so we want to be clear on that just from an FTE point of view. But from a trending point of view, yes, absolutely and – yes, that's our expectation, 12% to 14% revenue growth and 20% adjusted EBITDA margins.

John P. Babcock - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · George Staphos from Bank of America. Your line is now open

Okay, sounds good. I think, otherwise my other questions have been answered. Thanks.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Great. Thanks, John.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open.

Mark Weintraub - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open

Okay. Not to beat a dead horse, so just are there other ways that you might be able to increase your OSB capacity to fill in for the Dawson Creek besides of Val-d'Or or Cook or if you end up going that strategy would likely be via Val-d'Or or Cook?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, we are buyer for OSB capacity in aspen wood baskets as a part of our strategy to grow our Siding business. Also, I will say we are not running our Peace Valley operation, which is in British Columbia, fairly drivable distance from Dawson Creek at full capacity today. And so, some of that volume would transfer into Peace as we continue to optimize that location, which is a very large OSB mill for us. So the near-term solution would be to fill up – get Peace running at capacity and fill it up with volume out of Dawson. After that, then we're looking at some optimization across the rest of our footprint and then Val-d'Or and Cook being two options that are in our portfolio today.

Mark Weintraub - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open

Okay.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Let me also remind you that when we start up a Siding mill, so like Dawson has 300 million feet of Siding capacity, we won't have 300 million feet of Siding demand immediately most likely. And so we will be running OSB – we will continue to run OSB within our Siding system at both Dawson and back at Hayward. So, it doesn't – the lost OSB capacity doesn't just go away at the conversion, we just move that volume around our existing system, particularly in Siding so that all our mills are running at full capacity and balancing between Siding and OSB.

Mark Weintraub - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open

Understood. And just one point of clarification where you had talked about both Val-d'Or and Cook that there would be – that would be a longer process than at Dawson Creek. How much of that is a function of you going through the process and where you would be making OSB for a while versus it being higher – getting the staffing in place and all that, because they're not up and going. And maybe if you could just give a little bit more clarity on – from the point you say, it's a go on Val-d'Or to how long it'd be before you would be able to make OSB versus how long after making OSB, it would be then appropriate to be moving into the Siding market?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

So I would say, and these are rough estimates, but we're probably looking at from the very go on Cook, two years, including the permitting time in that timeframe. And if we had our (43:55), we would like to run OSB six months before converting it to Siding. And then Val-d'Or would be something less than that given the fact that the equipment's in place there.

Mark Weintraub - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open

Okay, great. So maybe 18 months instead of the two years or more like 12 months (44:13)?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Yes, 12 to 18 months for Val-d'Or.

Mark Weintraub - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open

Okay, terrific. Very helpful. Thanks.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

And as a preliminary part of that, the critical item would be securing the wood license.

Mark Weintraub - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Mark Weintraub from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Chercover from Davidson. Your line is now open. Steven Pierre Chercover - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Thanks. So I guess I will try and beat a dead horse. Philosophically, are you guys prepared to actually seed share in OSB, because something's got to pick up the slack, I assume?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, this plan does seed share, because we're converting on existing OSB mill into Siding. But as Brad said, part of the plan would be to run OSB at a future Siding location. Steven Pierre Chercover - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Yes. But since you're being transparent and I appreciate that, do your customers get concerned that you will be less of a factor in OSB going forward?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

I don't think so. No, I don't believe that. Steven Pierre Chercover - D.A. Davidson & Co.: All right. And then switching gears to South America, I know it's not a huge needle mover, but operating income and EBITDA were flat, but sales were up. So why were the margins down? Was there something operational?

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Steve, that was the point I was trying to make about selling the imported product. As you're aware, when we import product into Chile from either Brazil or from one of our North American facilities, we really don't get much margin on that, if any. And so, the sales, the increase is primarily due to sales of imported products. Steven Pierre Chercover - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Okay. And just how is South America doing? Is it finally, particularly Brazil, coming out of its funk and when will that third line in Chile be ready for prime time?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

So, Brazil is not coming out of the funk, there's new scandals just about every week in the paper. The housing market in Brazil is down between 55% and 60%, and it remains down. What's saving us in Brazil is our ability to ship into China and as well selling the product into Chile, although as Sallie said, we don't get a lot of margins, we give it to the shipper. As far as when the third mill will be operational, it should be the third quarter of next year. Steven Pierre Chercover - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Great. Well, thanks and congratulations to both you, Curt, and to Brad.

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thank you.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Yes. Thanks very much. First off, congratulations, Curt. You steered LP through some very interesting times both on the high side and also on the low side. So...

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thanks.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

And choose to fill there, Brad. Couple of questions, wondering, just because of the investor focus on capacity adds, what is Dawson running at now in terms of OSB production? I thought it was more on the value-added side, it wasn't running at a full 380 million capacity?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, it is running value-added product. It's running some more flooring product and TechShield principally. TechShield doesn't take the capacity out because it's a full process when you add the foil to it. Run a roughly 380 million...

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

350 million.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

...350 million square feet right now.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay. And then, in terms of the increased shipments in Chile, is that coming from primarily Brazil or is that coming from North America? And if it's coming from North America, does it have any kind of financial impact on the segment's result?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

No, we didn't ship any from North America in the last quarter. It's all from Brazil.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay. And then, just on the Siding conversion of Dawson, it looks like it's $400 per thousand higher than I think what you did at Swan, maybe you could just remind us of the cost and what the difference is?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Yes. Well, one of the things we're trying to do, and I think Brad said it and while we didn't emphasize it enough is, we don't have the detailed engineering done on the conversion yet. And so, that's what the intention is between now and July is to get that detailed engineering down. So we all have a plus or minus 10% budget for that mill. And you're right, what Brad said is it's somewhere between $100 million, $120 million and Swan, it was $85 million, but what Brad's including is $100 million to $120 million is more capability than we put into Swan. We did it in Swan and we just made it into a panel facility, so you don't have the capability to do lap and trim, which adds about $20 million to the cost. So that's principally what would be one of the reasons if we put that extra capability on.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

That's a good plan for our investor trip to Hayward in June, because I think, I mean this quite seriously, I think it's a lot easier to visualize the various ways that we have Siding, how we manufacture Siding by actually same as in the mill. So, I know you're on the list, Paul, so we'll make sure we address that when we see you in June.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Great. Okay. And then just long-term and I guess maybe this is a question for Brad, as you're taking over, what do you see LP being in five years? Is this going to be 50% OSB company, 50% Siding or with the growth of Siding and sort of the shrinkage of OSB actually put you more into the Siding camp?

William Bradley Southern - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, we'd say they're aggressive in large growth opportunity being in our Siding business, what we're talking about the 12% to 14% growth. And obviously, in OSB, there is still some upside on volume because of some of our larger commodity plans have some capacity to – from better optimization. So, that mix is going to swing and also let me add to, we do have value-add products like FlameBlock, lots of legacy flooring product that we launched this quarter that are high value-add OSB products that we're pushing and growing as well. So, our strategy is not to lessen our exposure to OSB in a large sense, but to move up the value chain, so that we are having more stable and higher margin products produced with a lot of emphasis on growing our Siding business, but also a lot of opportunity in our OSB business in areas like TechShield, Flooring and FlameBlock to grow high value-add products enriching our mix there as well. You can do the math on the capacities given what we're doing with the Dawson conversion. And to figure out, we end up being – when we'll be 50/50 and when we'll be 60/40, either way, but our focus is on that 12% to 14% revenue growth in Siding and continue to have value-add growth in our OSB products.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay. And maybe I can ask a bonus one, just you've got one main competitor in the Siding side, whose valuation is essentially double of yours right now on an EBITDA multiple basis. What percentage of Siding do you think you need to get to for the market to recognize the business that you've got there?

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

I think the market is beginning to recognize us and I think that you and your other brethren have been helpful to us, and pointing out that there is more of a building material on the Siding than imported products. But I think we're going to make incremental progress every quarter as we continue to show growth and we continue to show the earnings potential out of the Siding business.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Excellent. Thanks very much.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

I wish I could give you a better answer, but we've been scratching our head on that for four years.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Paul Quinn from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Me too. Thanks.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Thanks, Paul.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Chip Dillon from Vertical. Your line is now open.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Vertical. Your line is now open

Yes. I just had a quick follow-up. And that is based on sort of plans you have with – all the activity with the plant in South America and the conversion at Dawson, what should we be using at this point for CapEx, both for this year and next year?

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

Well, for this year, Chip, $175 million to $200 million, and we haven't given CapEx guidance yet for 2018, but you think about the plans we've been talking about, I think that gives you some new build off of some place between $50 million and $75 million for maintenance capital that will have some high capital needs in 2018 as well.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Vertical. Your line is now open

So, it looks like it should be – you're going to be fighting most of the spending on Dawson next year. So it would be probably similar to this year, if not may be a tad higher?

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

I would not disagree with that statement.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Vertical. Your line is now open

Okay. All right. Thanks, again.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

But, that's not guidance. That's not guidance, Chip.

Clyde Alvin Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Vertical. Your line is now open

I understand. It's my guess. But that helps. And, Curt, I will not – we'll not come looking for you to hold you to it. Thank you.

Curtis M. Stevens - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

All right.

Sallie B. Bailey - Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

Management

All right. Well, great. Thank you, Chip. And, Charlotte, I think that's all the time we have for questions. So if you could please provide the replay number? And I'd like to thank everybody for participating in our call. For those of you who are interested, I hope you get in touch with Mike about the Investor Day in June and as always, if you have any other questions, please give Mike or Becky a call, they are here to answer any follow-up questions. Thank you and have a great day and a good weekend.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for participating in today's conference. The replay number is 800-585-8367. The other number is 404-537-3406. Passcode, 2358885. Everyone, have a great day.